Mini-beta and redesign of Crossforum Theatre
Michael Allan
mike at zelea.com
Thu Feb 2 11:29:36 EST 2012
Hey Thomas,
> concerning the tracks: this is quite a new approach, isn't it? It
> covers many things, which the theatre would cover too: navigation
> between different polls, filtering them (even though sorting by
> activity is the only and probably one of the more unimportant
> criteria for an average user), discussion feed.
Yes. In the last couple of days I've come to re-think the layout of
Crossforum Theatre.
+--------------------------------------------------------+
| toolbar |
|--------------------------------------------------------|
| |------------------------------------------| (1)
| |------------------------------------------|
| | |
| | |
| | |
| feed | |
| | map |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
+-------------+------------------------------------------+
[CUR]. Current layout of Crossforum Theatre, showing single
track stack (1).
+--------------------------------------------------------+
| toolbar |
|--------------------------------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------------------------| (1)
|--------------------------------------------------------|
||| |||
||| |||
||| |||
||| |||
(4) ||| scene ||| (2)
||| |||
||| |||
||| |||
||| |||
||| |||
|--------------------------------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------------------------| (3)
+--------------------------------------------------------+
[PRO]. Proposed new layout, showing track stacks (1-4) on all
sides of a central scene.
The toolbar and track stack composition (which tools and tracks to
show) would be the personal choice of the user. When following a URL
to a theatre scene S, two different users would see the same S, but
might see different layouts of tools and tracks.
A scene can be anything. Stacks 2-4 would ordinarily appear only for
theatre specific scenes. These scenes are not theatre specific:
http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/home-1.xht
http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/diff-1.xht
> Now it adds a lot of complexity to the diff-bridge, the
> postion-pages etc. At first look the mass of symbols looked really
> confusing to me. Also a bit like, if something was broken with my
> browser-graphics. Is it really worth it? I mean, why would you want
> to navigate to another poll from the diff-bridge or the vote-space?
> Wouldn't a button to get there be enough here?
I'm not happy myself with the current design of either of these tracks
(poll or talk), but it's like you say:
> I understand that the discussion feedattracts attention on these
> pages to go deeper into the system. Hm ...
So whatever tracks a new user sees by default, they should invite
exploration. A toolbar alone cannot do that, especially not from a
static, context-free scene like the home page; the tools/links would
all be disabled. So we need something like tracks to expose the
dimensions along which the user can explore. They must be attractive
in some sense, though they needn't be self-explanatory. Exactly those
same tracks must appear on every page, however, regardless of
immediate utility. This kind of steadiness is necessary not only to
encourage exploration but also to support navigation in general.
> ... Maybe the symbols for the discussion-feed could be little
> speech-bubbles again? Maybe coloured for voter, candidate etc. and
> with the initials of the author in it?
It's hard to balance the possibilities. We can show more information
per post, though often at the cost of fewer posts in the track and
less chance of exposing temporal patterns. Text is possible, but it's
space hungry. Run your mouse along the track though, and you'll see
all the names flash in the heads-up display, kind of like here:
http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/diff-2.xht
I don't like the half moons for voter/candidate roles, but they pack a
lot of information in a small space. Each is only 6 pixels wide (and
the circles are only 8). Can we draw a narrow icon for talk bubbles?
Ideally in three distinct shapes?
In any case, the design of the individual tracks and which tracks to
show by default are not *immediately* important. We don't need solid
designs to begin with; they have little affect on the layout of the
rest of the UI so they can be changed easily later.
> I definatly like the mini-votespace controls in the bridge! I hope they
> going to become like this on position-pages too!?
Yes, exactly the same in appearance. I might skip doing mockups for
position drafts and votespace because they're easy to extrapolate from
the existing ones. We'll remove the redundant tools/links that are
hard coded into the draft pages, of course. This fits with making the
pollwiki a cross-project facility, because later we can rig the tracks
and toolbar to appear only for Votorola users.
Mike
> schrieb Michael Allan:
> > Dear all,
> >
> > I have some mockups ready. These illustrate some proposed designs for
> > the toolbar (1a), bridge footing controls (1b) and single sign-on
> > (1d), all of which are aimed directly at usability. (See the orignal
> > post quoted at bottom.)
> >
> > In addition, they introduce two new theatre tracks. These are not
> > strictly for usability purposes and will therefore be coded last.
> > They are intended to attract new users and also to provide back-links
> > to discussion media, both of which are new functions unprovided by the
> > existing code. (Crossforum Theatre is supposed to provide these
> > functions in its feeds and maps, but those are a little further in the
> > future.)
> >
> > The first mockup is of Votorola's home page:
> > http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/home-1.xht
> >
> > Stuff happens when the mouse moves. This is the attractor:
> > http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/home-2.xht
> >
> > A user who clicks around will begin learn what it's about:
> > http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/home-3.xht
> >
> > If only because he/she will soon bump into others who are talking:
> > http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/home-4.xht
> >
> >
> > The second mockup is of the difference bridge. It looks similar to
> > the previous mockup, which of course is the main idea:
> > http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/diff-1.xht
> >
> >
> > That's all I have, so far. I still need to draw a position draft and
> > votespace. But I just wanted to share these drawings, because it's
> > been taking longer than I planned. What do you think so far?
> >
> > Personally, I get a good feeling from tracks as a design pattern.
> > They have almost no effect on page layout so we can deploy them over
> > almost anything. (If we do a browser plugin, for example, then we can
> > deploy directly over top of web forums, or over any web based medium
> > or application.) And if a track doesn't happen to work out, then it's
> > no big deal; we just throw it away and code a new one. Easy come,
> > easy go.
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